Birpur town at the Nepal border in Madhepura district is being evacuated and the administration has stepped up the effort. Around 2 lakh people living within the embanked area of the Kosi, downstream, fear a deluge, as the trapped waters of the Sun Kosi will be released.
People are seen at the landslide area in Sindhupalchowk district after a massive landslide triggered by heavy rains in northeast Nepal. (Reuters)
Bihar chief minister, Jitan Ram Manjhi, who is on an aerial survey, said that the situation was serious. Officials believed that the buildup of water in the artificial lake , caused by a landslide in Nepal, which blocked Bhote Kosi, had now reached 2.2 lakh cumecs.
Nepalese security personnel gather for rescue work at the site of a landslide in Sindhupalchowk area. (AP Photo)
Evacuation of people is on along the eastern Kosi embankments right from Birpur, with thousands of people crowding the Kosi Maha Setu, that links Darbhanga and Madhubani districts. Several others have taken refuge on taller embankments.
Read: After Nepal landslide, flood alert in 8 districts of Bihar
While the principal secretary for disaster management, Vyasji said that it was not known, whether Nepalese officials had carried out the controlled explosions to allow the pent up waters to seep through, Kosi officials at Birpur said, that there had been a slight increase in the water levels in the river, which at the moment was 'not threatening'.
However, Vyasji said, the administration was keeping its fingers crossed and praying that there is no precipitation in the Kosi catchement areas in Nepal, which, if happens, could cause further build up of water and could break the dammed up area leading to disastrous consequences for Bihar.
Meanwhile, the Bihar government has again appealed to the people living in the floodplains of the Kosi upto Khagaria town, 80 kms south of Birpur barrage on the Indo-Nepal border, and Indian engineers to remove the landslide debris, which has blocked the river and created a 4km lake, in which the accumulation of water had reached a critical state.
Principal secretary, disaster management department (DMD) said, "We are prepared to force them to leave to save their lives, if they do not heed to the calls".
The administration wants people living between the embankments and on either flanks in districts like Supaul, Saharsa, Khagaria, Madhepura, Araria, Purnia and Madhubani to shift to some 84 relief camps, which have been set up and stocked with food.
Read: 100 likely dead as Nepal landslide blocks river
Choudhary said, that there has been appreciable rise in the Kosi flow at Birpurafter the blasts, but the peak could be attained between 2 am and 5 pm in Bihar areas, which would be the most critical.
PTI quoted Choudhary as saying that according to information, "the blockage on Bhote Kosi is around 1 kilometre in length and removing it to free the river is a tough task. Our teams of officials in Nepal are keeping a watch on the situation," he said.
The Centre has put the IAF and the Army on standby to help with rescue operations.
Vyasji said, while 15 columns of national and state disaster response forces have been positioned in critical areas three columns of the Army have also been moved in to help in Saharsa, Madhepura and Supaul.
PTI reported that NDRF teams were currently engaged in Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, and Khagaria districts and, along with the district administration, evacuated thousands of people so far and took them to relief camps, said NDRF Commandant Vijay Sinha stationed at Supaul.
Evacuation has also started in Darbhanga district by the NDRF, Sinha said.
Indian Air Force helicopters from its Gorakhpur and Bagdogra base in Uttar Pradesh would also be used in rescue and relief operations if required, with Purunia's Chunapur airfield as its base, the DMD principal secretary said.
While the disaster management department is reported to have opened 84 relief centres, Jyoti Mandal, a social activist reported that all essential commodities have started disappearing in Birpur and Madhepura. "Even flattened rice is not available", he said over phone.
A Nepalese Army helicopter flies over the site of a landslide during a rescue operation in Sindhupalchowk area, about 120 kilometers east of Katmandu, Nepal. (AP Photo)
He said, many people have already left Madhepura after a restless night on Saturday.
In Mahishi, thousands of people evacuated to the eastern embankments near Baluahi and Nauhatta.
About 200,000 people in about 100 villages of Mahisi and Nauhatta blocks between the Kosi eastern embankment face imminent danger and have to move out. The state is keeping its fingers crossed that a repeat of the Kosi disaster of 2008 does not happen.
A breach in Kosi embankment at Kushaha in Nepal on August 18, 2008, had resulted in one of the most disastrous floods in Bihar.
The river had changed its course, killing hundreds of people and displacing nearly three million. The incident also wreaked havoc in more than 800,000 acres of cropland.
The pressure on the government is to save Birpur barrage, which is in the entry point for the river, 80 kms north east of Madheoura town.
Read: Delhi, Kathmandu sit on dam plan to stop floods
Vyasji and minister for water resources, Vijay Kumar Choudhary said, while the barrage is designed to withstand a pressure upto 9lakh cusecs, the highest pressure it has faced is 6 lakh cusecs. Anything above that could be a worry.
Around two lakh people living within the embankments on a 256 km stretch from Birpur to Naugacchia and Khagaria near the Ganga would be in the direct path of the feared cascade, once Nepal effects an explosion to release the Sun Kosi waters.
To add, the river has a gradient of 47 metres per kilometre in its upper reaches and flattens to only 1 metre per km after Chatra in Nepal.
Beyond Chatra, on account of a progressive flattening of the bed gradient, the river first deposits boulders, pebble and shingles for over a distance of 32 km and sediment loads upto Hanumanagar.
Officials fear, if the some estimated 27 lakh cusecs is released suddenly, these boulders could hit the Birpur barrage and cause extensive damage forcing it to give way.
That would be an unprecedented disaster, the likes of which India has never seen, compromising as it would some 5 lakh people downstream, all the way upto the Ganga, some 80 km south in a straight line.
Read: Impending Kosi fury: Even best-case scenario not good, says expert
(With inputs from PTI)
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